The DRIVER+ Advanced Crisis Management Conference was held in Brussels on the 18th, 19th and 20th of February, bringing together over 300 Crisis Management specialists, policy makers, academics and technology developers from throughout Europe and beyond.
The project’s outputs, achievements and long-term legacy benefits for all European and international Crisis Management organisations were praised by senior European Commission officials and conference delegates.
The conference was the culmination of several years of intense work across Europe, involving 4 large-scale crisis scenario trials and a final trial/demonstration, technology development and assessments, and the development of a unique Trial Guidance Methodology for testing the best solutions for specific emergency management tasks.
Research was also undertaken to accelerate innovation in Crisis Management throughout Europe, in particular in connection with climate change related-events such as wildfires and flooding as well as medical emergencies and industrial accidents.
The project has also fostered the establishment of a network of Centres of Expertise to promote Crisis Management capability development and innovation. Furthermore, it has set up a pan-European platform, the Crisis Management Innovation Network Europe (CMINE) to foster knowledge sharing and cooperation.
DRIVER+ is an EU funded project tasked with promoting and testing new, science-based improvements in crisis management. Specialist speakers attended from world leading organisations, such as the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research on climate change and wildfires, the Red Cross on Psychological First Aid training for volunteers, and Patrick Meier of WeRobotics Flying Labs on the promotion of drone flying and mapping skills among local populations for improved crisis response throughout the non-European world.
The DRIVER+ Trial Guidance Methodology for conducting trials of Crisis Management solutions, is supported by the Test-bed Technical Infrastructure. All outputs are free and open source, available from the DRIVER+ website. Other free outputs include the DRIVER+ Portfolio of Solutions – an online database of advanced Crisis Management technologies.
The establishment of a network of DRIVER+ Centres of Expertise to ensure the sustainability of project outputs has been a major achievement, with 7 Centres signing letters of agreement at the conference – Entente Valabre (France), the Main School of Fire Service (SGSP, Poland), L3CE (Lithuania), The Resilience Advisors Network (RAN, Ireland), SRC-PAS (Poland), the Estonian Academy of Security Sciences (EASS), and the Austrian Red Cross (ARC).
For more information or to download reports and other project outputs go to:
www.driver-project.eu www.driver-project.eu/final-conference
This project has received funding from the European Union’s 7th Framework Programme for Research, Technological Development and Demonstration under Grant Agreement (GA) N° #607798
Ilkka Salmi, Director of the Disaster Preparedness and Prevention Directorate, DG ECHO (The Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations), European Commission
Representatives of the first seven DRIVER+ Centres of Expertise with Marcel van Berlo, project technical coordinator (third from right), after signing letters of agreement at the conference. The establishment of a network of DRIVER+ Centres of Expertise to ensure the sustainability of project outputs has been a major achievement, with 7 Centres signing letters of agreement at the conference – Entente Valabre (France), the Main School of Fire Service (SGSP, Poland), L3CE (Lithuania), The Resilience Advisors Network (RAN, Ireland), SRC-PAS (Poland), EASS (Estonian Academy of Security Sciences), and the Austrian Red Cross (ARC).
Felix Bloch, Head of Unit B3, Disaster Preparedness and Prevention, Knowledge Network and Evidence-Based Policy, DG ECHO
Ionut Homeag, Emergency Response Coordination Centre, European Commission
Angelo Moreno, Head of Unit B4, Safeguarding Secure Society, REA, European Commission
Chiara Fonio, Joint Research Centre (JRC), European Commission
Dr Marcel van Berlo, technical coordinator for the DRIVER+ project
The DRIVER+ Advanced Crisis Management Conference, brought together over 300 Crisis Management specialists, policy makers, academics and technology developers from throughout Europe and beyond.
Alessandra Zampieri, Head of Disaster Risk Management Unit, Joint Research Centre (JRC), European Commission